A chronicle of Eileen and Chip's round-the-world jaunt.

Recoleta

April 14, 2009

It's easy to upstage Evita when she's dead. The fact that you need to be dead too is the drawback, but the rules of the competition at Recoleta Cemetery are strict, and there are no exceptions. Right now Raul Alfonsin has aced out "The Spiritual Leader of the Nation" in the quest for attention inside the gates of one of the world's most famous necropoleis.

The Hero of Argentinean Democracy has managed to do this by passing away just last week, and despite doing so before his personal tomb in Recoleta was ready for his arrival, as this blog post explains. The remains of the first president elected after the end of military dictatorship in the 80s are being housed temporarily in the Radical Party crypt, which you see above. The crowd around his gravesite was much larger than that around Eva P's, and visibly moved; I saw one woman arrive with her young daughter in tow leave a flower on the pile, step back, and begin quietly crying.

The crowd pays tribute to Alfonsin.

People still leave flowers for Eva at the Duarte family memorial, which is far more understated than you might expect - especially compared to some of the truly extravagant architecture and sculpture other residents have erected for themselves or their family members here.

Not every resting place is so well cared for or attended; many residents clearly did not realize that perpetual rest in so public a spot would demand perpetual maintenance fees. You see dozens of tombs with weeds growing out of them, their doors broken and the coffins inside littered with fallen plaster and broken glass (glass cupolas and glass doors appear to be both popular and ill-advised).